Ups and Downs
by ZombieInk
Summary: Series of oneshots. Post-Mockingjay. In District 12, Katniss and Peeta have to live with the terrors from the Hunger Games. But there are happy times that almost make the bad ones worth it. Rated T for semi-dark themes and future chapter content.
1. Nightmares

**Disclaimer:** Suzanne Collins owns all characters & original plot details from _The Hunger Games._ I only own this story. Enjoy. :)

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**_Ups and Downs_**

**_"Nightmares"_**

_Gale and I are in a hovercraft. We don't speak. I stare down through a tiny window at the Capitol below us, where ant-sized people run through the winding streets. I hear screams. Suddenly, I realize my hands are tied. _

_"Gale?" I say. He doesn't answer me. He is driving the craft. "Gale!" I shriek. No answer. "GALE!"_

_"We're ready," Gale says. I think, for what? But he is not talking to me. He is talking to someone through the microphone on his headset. _

_The screams from below grow louder, more high-pitched. I can hear children screaming above all others. _

_"Five..." Gale says. _

_Suddenly, I am falling out of the hovercraft. Gale's voice still rings loudly in my ears._

_"Four... three..."_

_I am falling so fast that I catch on fire. _

_"Two..."_

_I hit the ground and am trampled by people running in the streets._

_"ONE."_

_I watch the bombs drop from Gale's hovercraft above us, but I cannot move. _

_"Katniss! Katniss!" Prim. I have to get to Prim. I cannot even move a finger. "KATNISS! Help me! Please, help me!"_

_I cannot move. I can only scream as the bombs hit. I watch as a bomb hits Prim and she explodes, shatters like a glass bottle hitting the floor._

_All sounds fade. The only things I can hear are Gale's laughter and my own screams._

"Katniss."

The sound of Gale's laughter stops suddenly, but my screams continue. I am thrashing around in my bed.

"Katniss, it's okay. It's just a nightmare." Peeta. I stop screaming and my eyes race around the dark room. I can't see anything.

"Peeta?" I say frantically, sitting up, which doesn't help my vision at all.

I feel his arms snake around my body. "I'm here, don't worry. I'm here." I bury my face in his chest and curl up into a ball in his lap. He strokes my hair. His even breathing soothes me, but there is no way that I am going to fall back asleep tonight. "It's okay."

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

_I walk outside of my house wearing my father's hunting jacket and a sheath of arrows, my bow in hand. I run to the electric fence and pass under it. My foot catches on one of the wires, though, and I trip and fall flat on my face. When I look up, I do not see the normal woods surrounding District 12. _

_I am in the arena. The Cornucopia is right in front of me, and I see a bloodbath ensuing there. One of the tributes spots me and I make a run for it. I scramble up a tree, the tribute bringing up my rear, and reach back for an arrow, but the arrows turn to ash in my hand. The tribute is slowly climbing the tree. I am running out of time when I hear a soft voice from above me._

_"Sing, Katniss." I look up. Rue. _

_"Rue!" I exclaim. _

_"Sing, Katniss!" she says louder, with urgency._

_I do not see how this will help me or her, but I begin the first verse of _The Hanging Tree_. But I forget the words and my voice is off-key._

_"Katniss! SING! PLEASE!" Rue cries._

_The tribute hurls a knife at Rue, and she falls from the tree, dead. "NO!" I scream. The tribute smiles wickedly at me, and I finally recognize her. It is Coin. I kick her in the face and she loses her grip on the tree. She tumbles to the ground, and upon her impact with the dirt, she lights on fire and the fire licks up the trunk of the tree. The smoke smells like roses. As my hair ignites, my screams fill the smoky, orange air._

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

When I returned to District 12 after assassinating Coin, Greasy Sae tried to nurse me back to health and get me to get my life back on track. After a while, she left that job in Peeta's hands. Peeta's company was generally more welcome, but I don't think anyone will ever be able to do anything to make me truly happy again. Not for a long time, at least.

For now, everything is so hard. Eating. Hunting. Talking to people. But even those things are not bad compared with the nightmares. The nightmares are worse than anything else I have to deal with now. During the day, I can at least try to distract myself. But at night, I rarely sleep without having terrible dreams invade my mind. I dread nighttime, and I cherish the daylight while it lasts.

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

_I am in a meadow. Finnick approaches me. I laugh as he shows me the sugar cubes in his hand. Then he kisses me full on the mouth. I pull away._

_"Stop, Finnick," I say. _

_"I can't," he replies, trying to kiss me again._

_"Why not?"_

_Finnick points at something behind me. I turn and see President Snow, standing with a pair of shears, casually clipping away at a rose bush. He looks at us and snaps his fingers. A pack of the white reptilian mutts jump out from behind the bush and attack Finnick. I try to fight them off, but there are too many. I look around frantically for help. Snow is gone, and Cinna stands in his place. Then Jackson appears, then Boggs, and Messalla and Mitchell and Pollux. They come to my aid, but the mutts keep appearing, killing us off one by one. Finally, I am alone, but my mother appears from behind the bush. _

_"Mother," I say, exhausted and breathless. "Please help me."_

_"I can't do this, Katniss," she says. "You're on your own." She leaps into the pack of mutts and I begin to scream._

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

Peeta makes the nightmares a little bit better. When we first started living in 12 again, he would stay at his house most nights. But sometimes, we would fall asleep together on the couch or in my room and he would climb into my bed when I started screaming. I liked those nights because I had someone who would hold me and tell me it would be all right, and I could believe him if only for a few minutes. After a while, Peeta just started sleeping at my house and going home in the morning. And now, he usually just sleeps in my bed so that I don't have to wait at all to be in his arms.

One night, a while ago, after a particularly rough dream, I looked up at him and kissed him. "Thank you," I said.

"For what?" he asked.

"For everything." I didn't say anything else, but I know he understood how much I appreciate him. When I wake up in his arms, everything is okay for a little while.

He does what he can to make me feel better, but we both know he cannot ever make the nightmares go away. Nothing can. I have to live with them.

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

_I am in the arena from the Quarter Quell. The rebels' hovercraft comes down once I shoot the forcefield. I tell them to wait so I can find Peeta first. I run off into the jungle, ignoring Haymitch and Plutarch calling for me. _

_I finally spot Peeta. I grab his hand and try to pull him away, but a giant silver claw pulls me up. It is the Capitol's, not Plutarch's, hovercraft. _

_In the hovercraft, faceless doctors chain me to a table and try to inject something into my arm. Tracker jacker venom, I know that's what it is. I scream and try to kick the doctors, but they clamp my legs down. Another doctor comes in. The face resembles Coin's, but the voice sounds like Snow's. She grabs a syringe and stabs my arm. I scream louder at the pain._

_Everything fades to black. When the lights come back on, Haymitch and Peeta stand over me. I sit up and close my hands around Peeta's neck. He falls limp and I scream._

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**Author's note: **Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed it. This is my first Hunger Games fic, and I'm really excited about it. If you liked it, stay tuned, because I'll be adding more chapters soon! The next one will be happier than this one, I promise.

Please review! I would love to know what you liked, what you didn't like, and what you want to see in future chapters. Thanks a million! :)


	2. Bakery

**Disclaimer:** I do not own The Hunger Games. If I did, I would not be here right now.

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_**Ups and Downs**_

_**"Bakery"**_

I hug my knees tighter into my chest. Although it is late spring, almost summer, I am chilly in my undershirt and thin pajama pants. I rest my head on the thick glass of the windowpane and continue to stare out at the scene I have been watching for a few hours now.

District 12 is filled with trucks and construction vehicles. There are piles of bricks and stones and lumber and all sorts of building supplies littering the ground everywhere. New, half-formed buildings seem to pop up every day, and now I can count several from where I sit at the window - one, two, three, four... five. A bookstore. A daycare center. A supermarket.

I remember when the reconstruction began, a few months ago, I think. They had just finished cleaning up, removing any remaining debris or bodies and tearing down the building foundations that had survived the bombing. Everyone was so excited. Everyone still is excited. I suppose I really couldn't have cared less at the time, but now I enjoy watching the builders slowly recreate the district. No,_ recreate_ is the wrong word... This new district is so different from the District 12 in which I was born. It will be a nice place to live, where everyone is happy and everyone has enough to eat and more. All the districts are like that now. President Paylor has made sure to make that happen.

I don't really know why I like to sit here at this windowsill so much to watch the builders out there in the town. Maybe it's just something to occupy my time. Maybe it is the feeling I get when I see the reconstruction taking place. Something that feels like hope. A feeling I haven't felt in a very long time.

The builders have only started their work for today. They must be getting an early start this morning, I think, because the sun has barely risen into the sky. I have been here for hours, waiting and watching the sun rise. After a relatively mild nightmare last night, I woke without screaming. Peeta was lying next to me, and he looked peaceful, so I decided not to disturb him. I slid out of bed, snuck out of the room, and crept down the stairs. Now I sit here, curled up on the window seat, feeling somewhat peaceful myself.

"There you are." Peeta's voice startles me, but I only jump slightly and turn my head. He is rubbing his eyes, standing there in his long trousers and baggy shirt. His blonde hair is mussed up. I give him a small smile. "Morning," he says.

"Morning," I reply, turning back to the window. He climbs onto the windowsill across from me and leans his head on his knees, looking out the window. After a few moments, he looks at me again, chin still resting on his knees which are pulled up to his chest like mine.

I wait a minute before saying, "Yes, Peeta?"

He grins. "Sorry. You just look so..." he pauses, shaking his head slightly. "I dunno. Content?"

I shrug.

"Want some breakfast?" he asks.

"Sure."

I follow him into the kitchen and push myself up onto the counter, watching him pull out eggs and milk from the fridge, then flour from a cupboard above the sink. He cracks a couple eggs and spoons some milk and flour into a bowl. Pancakes, I think.

While the batter sizzles in perfect circles on a pan on the stove, I pour us each a glass of orange juice. When I hand Peeta his juice, I notice he has a weird look on his face. I know it well - he wants to tell me something. "Peeta?" I say. "Is everything okay?"

"What? Yeah. Yeah, of course it is." He flips over a pancake.

"Then what's up?" I prompt.

"Nothing. I was just thinking..." I wait while he flips the last pancake onto a plate. "Well, you know how the reconstruction's going really well and everything..."

"Peeta, spit it out."

He sets the plate on the kitchen table and takes a breath before saying, "I want to open a bakery in town."

My face immediately breaks into a grin. "You do?"

He nods. "You're... you're okay with that?"

"Of course I am! Why wouldn't I be?" I am proud of Peeta, proud that he wants to do something he loves and move on in his life. Something I have been unable to even imagine doing yet. But he is braver than I am, stronger even, and I am honestly surprised it has taken him this long to want to take this step. Unless he has been considering it for a while, but something has been holding it back. Like me.

"I just... I was worried that you wouldn't want me to leave," he explains, looking me in the eye. "I mean, not _leave_, but I wouldn't be around as much. I didn't know if you were... ready for that." He struggles saying these words, as if not wanting to offend me.

I am not offended. Not at all. But I do feel a little uncomfortable. I was right - I _have_ been holding Peeta back. He has been wanting to open up a bakery for who knows how long now, and he has been too afraid to say anything in fear of upsetting _me_. I feel ashamed of myself.

Maybe he senses what I am feeling, because he quickly tries to correct himself. "Katniss, I didn't mean it like that. I just didn't want to..."

"No, Peeta, it's all right. You're right," I interrupt him. "I think it's a great idea." Not only have I been keeping Peeta from doing what he wants so much to do, but I have been so absorbed in my own self-pity that I haven't even noticed. I have been so selfish.

"Are you sure?" he says quickly. "I don't have to. If you need more time... I mean, I'd be gone all day. I don't want to leave you alone if you don't..."

"I'm completely sure. I'm so happy for you, Peeta." I give him a reassuring smile. It must be enough to convince him, because his face lights up, both with excitement and relief.

"Thank you, Katniss." He walks around the table and gives me a tight hug.

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

Peeta holds my hand and leads me down the walk through the front yard. It is a beautiful day, and the late spring warmth soaks into my skin. But there are a few big clouds I see in the distance. Probably won't rain here until much later.

I feel a tug on my arm and realize that Peeta is now walking so quickly that he's more pulling me along than walking with me. "Peeta, slow down," I laugh. He's so excited, I can tell by the look on his face when he turns to face me.

"Sorry," he says, his grin widening. But he doesn't slow down. I eventually give up and start jogging next to him.

"Where is it?" I ask. We are in town now, having left the neighborhood of smaller houses next to the Victor's Village. We pass the school and I wave at the kids on the playground, who wave back.

"Almost there."

We reach the front of the new butcher shop and Peeta stops abruptly, grabbing my hand again to stop me from going any further. He grins at me. "Ready?" he says excitedly. I chuckle.

"I've been ready for an entire month, Peeta. Let's get on with it."

He steps behind me and puts his hands over my face, covering my eyes. I am startled, and I begin to raise my hands to push his hands away, but I make myself relax and allow him to walk me around the corner. I hear a chime above my head somewhere, and the scent of sawdust and paint fills my nose. "Okay," Peeta says, and removes his hands.

I look around me and a smile spreads across my face. I am standing in an open room, surrounded by huge windows that wrap around the shop for the walls except for the back wall, the one that I am facing. That wall is painted green, a wide, open doorway in the center; a long, topless counter stands in front of it. I am in Peeta's bakery.

"It's fantastic," I say, turning to face him. His grin widens, if that's even possible, showing all of his teeth.

"Really?" he asks, although it's clear that he is in love with the place. "Well, it'll be much nicer when it's finished, of course. Come on, I'll show you." He takes my hand again and pulls me across the room, behind the counter. "Obviously, we need a top for the counter, and then some more glass countertops for the windows here," he begins, patting the large, square holes in the wall on the other side of the door leading to the back. Then we go through the door and he shows me the huge kitchen, where there is not much yet, but he tells me where all the appliances will be and how nice it will be to have such an open space to bake in. Then back out to the front of the shop where he wants to put some small tables and chairs and a rug and maybe some potted plants and wall hangings and he's so excited that it rubs off on me, and we're both smiling and laughing.

"It's amazing, Peeta," I say when he's done. He breathes in deeply and exhales, nodding slightly. "So what are we doing today?" I ask.

He leads me back into the kitchen and opens a pantry where there is a broom and a can of paint sitting on the floor. "So... one of us needs to paint and one of us needs to sweep," he says, looking at me. I take a hint and grab the broom. While I sweep, he goes back out to the front and spreads a second coat of green paint on the one wall. We talk about exterior decorations and tablecloth colors, and this is so not my area of expertise (or enjoyment, for that matter), but I am thoroughly enjoying how much Peeta is enjoying this. It's been a long time since I've seen him this happy about something.

Before we know it, it is late afternoon. I look outside (which is hard not to do, since the entire shop is see-through) and see that it is much darker than it should be at this time of day, because those clouds have rolled in. Peeta and I sit on the freshly swept floor and split a big ham sandwich that we picked up earlier from the deli across the street.

"So the workers are gonna bring in the rest of the stuff?" I ask.

Peeta nods and finishes swallowing before he says, "Yup. Everything's basically taken care of. All the essentials, at least."

"Wow. It's almost done," I say, and I have to raise my voice because rain has started to patter against the windows. They are big, fat raindrops, and we watch them trickle down the window-walls. The dim light coming from outside casts shadows of the raindrops on the windows onto the floor, making it look like it is raining all around us. It's a relaxing, almost beautiful, effect.

After a few minutes, Peeta adds, "The only thing I haven't decided yet is the name."

**o.o.o.o.o.o**

About two weeks later, the heavenly scent of fresh-baked bread and cookies and so many wonderful things fills my nose as I open the door and hear the chimes above my head. The bakery is crowded, with a long line that extends from the counter to the back of the shop. The four small tables are all occupied, along with the two outside on the small patio. A soft, jazzy song plays somewhere in the store, but it is barely audible over the sound of happy chatter and the occasional _ding_ of the cash register.

I make my way through the store, receiving rude glances from those waiting in line until they realize it's me. I smile at Hugo, a younger boy who is working the cash register, and walk into the kitchen. Peeta doesn't look up as I hop up and sit on a counter; he is working away, rolling out a big chunk of dough with his hands, but I know he noticed that I entered.

"It's so busy out there," I say. He nods and begins cutting the dough with a knife.

"I know," he says. "I can't believe how much of a hit this place is."

"I can," I reply, and I mean it. "I knew people would love it."

Peeta smiles and doesn't say anything for a few minutes as he places his unbaked cookies on a pan. They are cut into shapes like stars and diamonds and even tiny people. Then, at last, he looks up at me and says, "I finally thought of a name."

"Oh?"

"_Dakota's._ My father's name." His face is rather expressionless when he says this, but I know this means a lot to him.

I jump down from the counter and cross the kitchen to stand in front of him. "It's perfect," I say quietly. And before we kiss, I whisper, "I'm so proud of you."

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**Author's Note:**Yay, second chapter! Sorry it took so long. My excuse: finals. But now that school is about over, I'll be updating much more frequently (I'll try, at least).

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, because I do. I like writing happy stories. And in case you haven't guessed, the chapters for this story will be alternating (happy, not-so-happy, happy, not-so-happy, etc.).

I had to make up a name for Peeta's father. _Dakot__a_ means "friend" or "ally," and I thought it fit because of how kind Mr. Mellark was.

Please review! Thank you!


	3. Flowers

**Disclaimer:** The Hunger Games? Not mine. But a girl can dream...

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**_Ups and Downs_**

**_"Flowers"_**

_"I went to the woods this morning and dug these up... I thought we could plant them... For her."_

I remember Peeta saying these words, or something along those lines, every time I walk by the window, every time I come home and see them on the side of the house. Those once-scraggly primrose bushes that are now healthy and well-kept, thanks to Peeta. He spends time out there each week in our small garden with a pair of shears and the hose, pruning and weeding. I don't really understand at first why he works so hard to care for those bushes, but he does, and I can't say I don't appreciate it. It shows that he knows it means a lot to me. Even more, he's clearly proved to me that he loved Prim, too.

Sometimes, I am tempted to go out there with him and lend a hand. I don't exactly know why I haven't - it's not like it's really hard work or that it will take up a lot of my time. But there is something about those roses that... disturbs me. They're beautiful, of course, but I think it's the fact that they remind me so much of my sister that is painful for me. In the yellow-white petals I see her face, the tone of her fair skin, even her blonde hair.

I wonder if she would be upset with me. If she could see me now, in my constant self-pity, in my fear of everything that reminds me of the Games and the people I lost... would she be angry? Probably not. Disappointed? Most likely.

This thought is the one that drives me to get up from my window seat one day and walk out to the garden. Peeta is kneeling on the ground; a small pile of green, pulled-up weeds lies next to him.

"Need any help?" I offer as I approach him. He turns his head to look up at me.

Squinting in the bright, mid-day sunlight, he hesitates, clearly confused. He had asked a few times in the past if I wanted to join him in the garden, but I had always refused. After a while, he stopped asking.

"Uh... sure," Peeta says. He nods to the ground next to him, gesturing for me to kneel, and brushes the dirt off of his hands. "I was just about to trim the bushes."

He grabs a pair of small shears. When he holds them out to me, I give him a look that must be somewhere between hesitant and just plain lost; he chuckles and says, "Here. I'll show you." He reaches over to one of the bushes and gently takes a brown, shriveled bloom in his fingers. Raising the shears, he snips off the rose from its stem. "See? Easy."

Peeta hands me the clippers and smiles encouragingly. I reach for another dying bloom and hold it cautiously in my hand. "Don't worry, they don't have thorns," Peeta assures me. I hold up the shears to cut the flower when a bird squawks loudly somewhere in the distance, startling me. My hand slips and I cut a stem. It wasn't the bloom I intended to snip; it was an entire branch, with four or five healthy flowers. The branch lay in the dirt at my knees.

"Katniss," Peeta says. But I ignore him, throw down the scissors, and get to my feet. "Katniss, it was an accident. You didn't-"

"It doesn't matter, does it?" I say loudly, looking at him angrily. "I still did it!"

"It's just a flower." Peeta pushes himself up from the ground and tries to calm me down. "It'll grow back."

"No, it won't. Not the same." I storm away from him, back into the house, hating Peeta's stupid flowers, hating myself for killing them. I know I'm overreacting, but chopping off those primroses, those flowers that remind me so much of my sister... It felt like an insult to her memory.

But still, I don't want to think about how disappointed she would be in me for yelling at Peeta for a stupid mistake I made. It wasn't his fault. I'll apologize to him later, I tell myself. He'll understand. But would Prim?

I wipe my eyes and think frustratedly, _get over it, Katniss._ But I can't. The flowers will grow back, and I'll be okay. But I know I'll never get over Prim, and no flower bush can change that.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry this one is so short. I dunno how I feel about it... I wanted to post it, though, because I don't know how long it'll be before I update again.

I want to thank everyone who reviewed. I will say, though, that if you want to review (which I completely encourage), please be nice. I'm aware that I have a lot of improvement to do when it comes to my writing, and I'm open to as much constructive criticism as I can get. But please don't insult me. If you're a writer, you can imagine how much it would suck to be told that you're bad at what you love to do.

But, on the upside, I did get some positive feedback, so THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!


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